One More Discovery

In the previous posting I reported that I had been able to sinter small amounts of copper and Bronze XT in combination with Low Shrinkage Steel XT. Pushing the limits just a little bit further, I tried to fire bigger amounts without pre-firing.

Remember the project “Overlay with Bronze XT“? I re-made it with Low-Shrinkage Steel XT. Copper backing is 4 cards thick, each overlay is 4 cards thick.

It worked.

Two hours firing, no pre-firing, full sintering. Just like the old silver clay.

And it worked again.

And again.

And again.

At one point I started to add a copper circle and a Bronze XT circle to the batches. While the copper circle sintered some of the time, the Bronze XT circle did not sinter at all. They sintered only when they were combined with Low-Shrinkage Steel XT in a single piece.

The instruction manual is about to be updated. Except for the new discoveries discussed in the last three postings, other issues will be revisited, such as pre-firing on a stove top vs. pre-firing in the kiln, arranging pieces in the firing vessel, and ramping speed.

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Hi Hadar. I don’t even use your clays (I’m primarily a silver girl), but I so appreciate all of your experimentation. It gives me hope that one day we will have 100% firing success easily with all of the clays just like with the silvers. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your constant innovation.

Wow and thanks again for your continued experimentation.
See if I have this correct. This experiment worked because you are using the XT clays with quick fire copper together?? or because these 2 clays are used with the low shrinkage steelXT?? All of the experiments which worked had the low shrinkage steel XT?? Were you using the high fire schedule?

Marlynda, I was using low shrinkage steel XT in all my experiments. In fact, this is the only steel clay I am currently using because it can do whatever the others can do. Since it requires high-fire, I combined it with copper and Bronze XT, which are also high fire. Rose bronze will work too. The only clays you can’t use in this mix are regular bronze, brilliant bronze and white bronze. Does this answer your question?

Thanks again. So the layered piece had copper on the back so there are parts of the copper and Bronze XT overlays that are touching mostly copper and just a bit of the steel. This is pretty interesting.

I’ve tried firing small pieces of Low Shrinkage Steel XT with inlays of copper four times and could not get the copper to sinter in a single firing, though the steel s sintering beautifully with no cracking or warping. Are you still using the coconut carbon? I’ve also tried it with inlay of Bronze XT and the bronze wouldn’t sinter either. Any suggestions? I would so like to have a steel combo that I can fire in one stage since I’ve had such problems with the steel cracking on the first burnout stage.

Hi Hadar,
I’m out of my splint and been experimenting a little with combining the copper and bronze XT with the low shrinkage steel XT. Will this work if I use the steel as the base? I ask this because won’t the this steel shrink the least?
thanks,
Linda
P.S.I love the low-shrinkage steel XT the best!